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Escaped federal inmate arrested in Saanich, B.C.

VANCOUVER—An inmate who escaped from a minimum security prison in Mission, B.C. on Saturday night has been recaptured.

Michael Douglas Sheets, 48, was arrested without incident at approximately 5:20 a.m. Tuesday morning on the 5800 block of Old East Road in Saanich, B.C., according to a statement from Saanich Police.

Michael Douglas Sheets, a convicted criminal who escaped from a federal minimum security prison in Mission, B.C. on Saturday night, was captured early Tuesday morning in Saanich, B.C. (HO / Correctional Service of Canada)

Sheets was found unaccounted for during a routine inmate count on the evening of Saturday, Sept. 1, according to a statement from the Correctional Service of Canada. The CSC contacted local RCMP, and a warrant was issued for Sheets’ arrest.

Sheets is currently serving a sentence of 14 years and six months for manslaughter, arson, escape and other offences. Sheets’ manslaughter and arson convictions stem from a 2004 incident in which he threw a Molotov cocktail into the home of a Calgary mother and her two children. Both children were killed in the ensuing fire, while their mother suffered severe smoke inhalation and a broken ankle, sustained as she jumped from a window to escape the burning house.

The statement from Saanich Police said the department received information that Sheets was hiding in an outbuilding in the Vancouver Island town, and took the escaped inmate into custody with assistance from the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team.

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A spokesperson for the Mission Institution federal prison — which has both minimum and medium security areas — said an investigation into Sheets’ escape is underway, having begun the minute he was discovered missing. Sheets will be transferred to a medium security facility, she added, though whether that will be the medium security portion of the Mission Institution has not yet been determined.

Sheets, whose criminal record includes a 2015 conviction for unlawful escape from custody — will be fully reassessed before placement in another institution occurs, the spokesperson said.

Sheets is the second inmate to disappear from the Mission Institution’s minimum-security section in the past month, and the third to go missing from the facility since April.

On Aug. 8, a CSC statement said staff at the Mission Institution noticed that 57-year-old John Norman Mackenzie was unaccounted for at around 10:15 p.m. He is currently serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, armed robbery and other offences.

In late April another convicted killer, 83-year-old Ralph Whitfield Morris escaped from the same facility. He was apprehended by local RCMP 12 hours after he failed to show up for a routine prisoner count.

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